The Open Market Blog

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/26/2020

In an op-ed in National Review, CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young takes a look at President Trump’s new Executive Order directing agencies to get rid…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/26/2020

President Trump issued an Executive Order encouraging agencies to keep #NeverNeeded regulations waived during the coronavirus permanently off the books. Meanwhile, regulatory agencies issued new…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/18/2020

Retail sales declined 16.4 percent in April, setting a new record low for the second month in a row. Congress returned to Washington, putting the…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/11/2020

The first full week of May featured a continuing pandemic, the biggest unemployment increase in U.S. history, a hailstorm in the D.C. area, freezing temperatures…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 05/04/2020

The 2020 Federal Register passed 25,000 pages, and is poised to surpass last year’s page count by more than 1,000 pages. The number of final…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/27/2020

New unemployment applications were down to 4.4 million last week. This is still more than an order of magnitude greater than the pre-coronavirus record. With…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/24/2020

President Trump has deferred selected tariff payments for companies experiencing coronavirus-related hardship. It came after more than two weeks of starts, stops, denials, and reversals.

Trade and International

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/23/2020

Policy makers have already waived more than 350 regulations and counting that were slowing the pandemic response and harming economic recovery. But with a 185,000-page…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/20/2020

Please do all you can to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Hopefully Congress will also act on some of the #NeverNeeded regulations that…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/16/2020

California’s AB5 law was already backfiring before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It has cost thousands of jobs—many of which are home-based. During a time of…

Labor and Employment

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/13/2020

When Congress convenes next week, it will likely begin work on a Phase 4 stimulus bill. CEI analysts have made the case that addressing #NeverNeeded…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/09/2020

In a new op-ed in RealClearMarkets, Iain Murray and Ryan Young outline the major points of CEI’s just-released #NeverNeeded paper, which identifies regulations harmful to…

Consumer Well-Being

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/06/2020

Quarantine and stay-at-home orders will likely last through the end of April in many places. In more heartening news, governments are rolling back numerous #NeverNeeded…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 04/01/2020

In a new Washington Examiner op ed, CEI Senior Fellow Ryan Young proposes a Regulatory Reduction Commission to act as a permanent watchdog to prevent #NeverNeeded…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 03/30/2020

Coronavirus deaths topped 1,000 in the U.S. last week, while new cases continued to double every few days. Meanwhile, agencies issued new final regulations ranging…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 03/23/2020

Governments are responding to the coronavirus with a getting rid of harmful regulations on restaurants, schools, and stores. Most of these rules were never needed…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 03/16/2020

It was a rough week. Coronavirus infections and deaths continued to climb. Wall Street is officially in a bear market, and Congress and President Trump…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 03/09/2020

Coronavirus continued to spread, the Democratic presidential field significantly narrowed, and the former head of the UAW was charged with embezzlement. Meanwhile, agencies issued new…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 03/02/2020

The coronavirus outbreak began to infect financial markets as well as people, with stock markets having their worst week since at least 2008. The number…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/27/2020

By far the most common criticism of minimum wages is that they cost jobs.

Labor and Employment

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/24/2020

During the four-day week, Lawrence Tesler passed away. The underappreciated inventor created the cut, copy, and paste functions on computers. The Hair Club for Men…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/18/2020

Spring Training began for all 30 Major League Baseball teams, bringing joy across the nation. Meanwhile, agencies issued new final regulations ranging from grains ounce…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/13/2020

California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) is intended to classify more independent contractors as formal employees. The goal is for workers to get higher wages and…

Labor and Employment

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/10/2020

The impeachment trial ended the way everyone expected, the State of the Union address happened, and the coronavirus outbreak intensified. Agencies issued new final regulations…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/03/2020

The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. The legislation would essentially nullifies 28…

Labor and Employment

• By: Ryan Young
• 02/03/2020

The impeachment trial continued, Brexit happened, President Trump signed the USMCA trade agreement, and the 2020 Federal Register topped 5,000 pages. Agencies issued new final…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/27/2020

The Federal Register had a four-day week due to Martin Luther King Day, but agencies still found time to issue new final regulations ranging from…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/21/2020

In a busy week, President Trump signed Phase One of a trade agreement with China on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Senate ratified the USMCA trade…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/16/2020

The USMCA trade agreement passed the Senate today. USMCA is valuable damage control. Three years of unpredictable tariff increases, threats of increases, and diplomatic tensions…

Trade and International

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/15/2020

Phase One of a trade deal with China has enormous value as damage control against further tariffs, but it comes at a cost. The Trump…

Trade and International

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/13/2020

Twenty four states rang in 2020 with minimum wage increases. Most of the increases are modest, so the tradeoffs will be, too. But there was…

Labor and Employment

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/13/2020

The new year started off with a literal bang, though as of this writing the worst Iran scenario seems to have been avoided. The Senate…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 01/06/2020

Happy New Year, everyone. We’re doing a slightly different format this week, on account of the new year starting mid-week. With just two days’ worth…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/31/2019

Happy New Year, everyone. Now that 2019 is in the books, we have some data on how much new regulation hit the books. Note that…

Regulatory Reform

• By: Ryan Young
• 12/30/2019

Federal workers got a three-day week as a Christmas present this year. Agencies still put out 323 notices, 50 proposed regulations, and 1,342 Federal Register…

Regulatory Reform